Credit to Mike Gillis. Flew in from Van on Sat, met with JP Barry and Mason Raymond on Sun. Closed deal this morning mins before hearing.

Which was promptly followed by this:

$2.5 and $2.6 for Mason Raymond. Good deal for both.

This came five days after David Perron signed a two-year, $4.3 million extension with the St. Louis Blues. He will be paid $1.8 million and $2.5 million over the next 2 years.

And of course, we all remember the Clark Macarthur contract ($2.4 million per year) that was awarded to him by the arbitrator and subsequently rejected by the Atlanta Thrashers.

Michael Petrella suggested via Twitter:

The idea now is “under no circumstances, allow players to GET to arbitration.”

With each new RFA signing, I think more drops of pee come out of Stan Bowman. With Antti Niemi sitting back, eating box after box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and watching all of these RFA’s making multi-million dollar deals.

Wonder how Stan is working on that plan to keep Niemi AND Sharp…still no clue? That’s fine by me.